Volley Talk anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA blackout

I think it's a very interesting bill. The implications are pretty frightening though. IMO I just think that the entire entertainment industry needs to realize that we are living in a brand new culture. 50 years ago if I wanted to share an article I read in the newspaper or a magazine with a friend I would have to purchase a hard copy and give the hard copy to them. Today I can search online, for free, and share the article via facebook to anyone I want too...for free. Is the latter wrong simply because the former used to be the standard? This bill goes beyond the Chinese stealing everything, and hits to the core of the entertainment industry is after, and that is control.

Prior to the boom of the internet, and the parallel rise of the technology and information age globally, the entertainment industry had a monopoly on what the masses consumed in picture, print, and audio. The internet changed all that, and the free flow of information and ideas has transformed into a free flow of culture. Now we don't need these big corporations to tell us what is cool (for a price), we develop what is cool for ourselves, and share it. A video on youtube of a baby laughing can draw as many views as the most recent episode of Desperate Housewives. This is the world we live in today and the "old" entertainment industry is struggling to stay in control.

I am amazed, but also very glad, to see how widespread the anti-SOPA blackout is across the web. It's comforting to see that the community can actually organize and come together to fight something as obviously stupid as SOPA/PIPA

For years now, the big media companies have been paying for access to Congress to craft "anti-piracy" laws that give them total control over their own products, even after we buy them. An example is DVDs that can only be played in certain parts of the world.

I don't own an e-book reader because, as convenient as it would be to have a whole library in my hand, I want a whole library that I own. I lend my books. I give my books. E-books break that ability. The same is true of CDs, DVDs, etc.

I have no problem with paying artists or software engineers or writers and actors to create things that I use and enjoy. But I have a big problem with media companies trying to sell me the products that other people create and then retain control over those products even after they sell them to me.

Once upon a time, publishers didn't own the rights to books. All they did was publish them. I think the internet may be moving us back to those times, and the only people who this would really hurt are the big media companies. You know that when they are spending money to try to write laws like this, they are only doing it because they expect a return on that investment. That return comes from our pockets.

"Piracy" is an intentionally emotionally laden term that doesn't really reflect the true issue.

Many of the organizations protesting SOPA (Wikipedia excluded, since they are based on a philosophy not of copyright, but of creative commons) do have a vested interest in reducing the amount of "misappropriated creative works" (what everyone else is calling "piracy"). Protesting SOPA/PIPA isn't about wanting people to be able to freely misappropriate other people's creative works. It's about the ability for the government to blacklist a website and cut off its sources of funding based on an unconfirmed accusation of copyright infringement. Guilt before innocence.



No, that's not what they're fighting. Let's use VT as an example. We'll assume that it doesn't "make any money," in the not-being-a-for-profit-enterprise sense. Let's say somebody posts a link to a video clip that is copyrighted by some other entity. VT has acted, according to SOPA, as an agent of copyright infringement. Unless every post is pre-screened by a moderator, all it takes is one piece of user-generated content, one post, that infringes someone's copyright, for VT to be considered "the owner or operator of [an] Internet site" that "is facilitating the commission of copyright infringement" (SOPA's words, not mine).

YouTube, Digg, Tumblr, Pinterest, even Google through the links it serves - that's a heck of a lot of user-generated content that site owners are now responsible for policing. If we don't think this will shut down entirely the Internet bulletin board, we are eternally optimistic to a fault at best, and pretty darn naive at worst.



Not really the best analogy. I'm assuming you don't allow thousands of strangers free reign in your home when you aren't there. How about, "If I have a website and an end user posts infringing content on it, how is that any different from a public park where somebody decides to dump a dead body?" Does the city have liability for a user's actions? Do we file charges against the mayor or the townspeople? Immediately shut the park down, cordon it off with police tape, and prevent anybody from accessing it? A public space will experience unauthorized uses, but it's not practical to have a police officer stationed at every city park, asking each user what they plan on doing before informing them whether or not they may proceed.

it appears that the blackout has worked. at least for the time being.

www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-01-18/SOPA-PIPA-protest-reaction/52641560/1

Can we have our volley talk back now?

3 hours and 8 mins.... but who's counting...